1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-air conditioner central control system, and more particularly to a multi-air conditioner central control system wherein a multi-air conditioner system including a plurality of multi-air conditioners and a ventilation system including a plurality of ventilation devices are constructed to share a physical network and control resources with each other such that the multi-air conditioners and the ventilation devices can be controlled in an integrated manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, air conditioners have entered into widespread use. According to such a trend, a multi-type air conditioner has been developed and made commercially available which includes two or more indoor units installed in individual rooms of a home or individual offices of a building, and an outdoor unit connected in common with the indoor units. A plurality of such multi-type air conditioners typically constitute a multi-air conditioner system.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a conventional multi-air conditioner central control system.
The conventional multi-air conditioner central control system comprises, as shown in FIG. 1, a multi-air conditioner system 20 including a plurality of indoor units 22 installed in individual rooms and a plurality of outdoor units 21 each of which is connected in common with associated ones of the indoor units 22 to control the flow of a coolant therethrough. The central control system also comprises a central controller 10 which is connected with the outdoor units 21 via a network so as to control the multi-air conditioner system 20 in an integrated manner.
Each of the outdoor units 21 takes charge of two or more indoor units 22 to control the circulation of a coolant through the associated indoor units 22. If an operation command is inputted to one of the indoor units, the associated outdoor unit connected with the indoor unit determines which indoor unit has received what kind of commands and adjusts the amount of coolant condensation to perform a cooling or heating operation in compliance with the inputted operation command.
The central controller 10 collects, through the outdoor units 21 over the network, state information data regarding the outdoor units 21 and the indoor units 22 connected to the associated outdoor units 21. The central controller 10 monitors operation states of the entire multi-air conditioner system 20 connected via the network, and sends a desired control command on the basis of monitoring results to a corresponding one of the indoor or outdoor units 22 or 21, which is requested to execute the control command.
On the other hand, owing to dense and high-rise buildings and aggravated air pollution, there is an increasing need to construct a ventilation system 30, together with the multi-air conditioner system 20, for continuously replacing polluted indoor air with fresh outdoor air.
The ventilation system 30 includes a plurality of ventilation devices. The ventilation devices are classified into master ventilation devices 31 and slave ventilation devices 32. One or more of the slave ventilation devices are connected to an associated device assigned as their master ventilation device, thereby forming a localized network. The connected slave ventilation devices perform the same operation in sync with the operation of their master ventilation device.
However, the conventional ventilation system has a limitation in that each of the master ventilation devices and its associated slave ventilation devices forms a localized network, but the master ventilation devices are not networked for integrated control.
To construct a central control system for the conventional ventilation system through a network interconnecting the master ventilation devices, there is another problem in that a separate central control system apart from the existing multi-air conditioner central control system has to be constructed, imposing a heavy cost burden.
Moreover, if a separate central control system of the ventilation system is constructed, there is a further problem in that operation controls such as power management must be separately performed for the multi-air conditioner system and the ventilation system coexisting in one building, degrading overall operation efficiency.